Mika Brzezinski On Her New Book Earn It! and the Best Job Advice She Ever Got

It’s one thing to admire someone who has her dream job, but quite another to get advice from her on just how to get there yourself. In the new book Earn It: Know Your Value and Grow Your Career, in Your 20s and Beyond, out today, Mika Brzezinski, the Morning Joe host, MSNBC anchor and bestselling author shares essential advice for people just entering the workforce as well as those with a few years under their belts—but she doesn’t do it alone. To create this guidebook, Brzezinski teamed up with Daniela Pierre-Bravo, a producer on Morning Joe who spent formative years of her own career working for Brzezinski on the program.

Earn It! begins with the line “If I’ve learned one thing in my career, it’s the importance of being able to effectively communicate your value,” and proceeds to share lessons—not only from Brzezinski and Pierre-Bravo but also a who’s who of successful executives in fields like fashion, media, and business—to help readers do just that.

The book touches on finding the field that’s right for you, dealing with the frustration of settling in, asking to be paid what you’re worth, and much more. Here, Brzezinski and Pierre-Bravo tell T&C about what it took to make their idea a reality.

You two worked together. At what point did you realize the relationship you had could be useful to other people—and how did you know it was a book?

Daniela Pierre-Bravo: When you’re starting out, it’s hard to do your work and at the same time pitch your ideas, especially with someone like Mika who’s always on the go. I started as a coordinator on the show and was pretty low level. For me, it was about trying to find a way to get in front of her that wasn’t inorganic. It took me two years to tell her about this idea I had. Back in 2016, we were on the road during the primaries and we had a show in South Carolina, and she asked if I could fill in for her chief of staff at an event that afternoon. That was one of the first times we had alone time and it wasn’t weird if I were to tell her more about me. On the ride to the plane, I started pitching her this idea. I wanted to get her advice on the platform I was creating in my mind that was all about giving young people access. I told her I wanted to do this because I myself had this struggle: I was undocumented for a long time before DACA in 2012. I told Mika my story because I was so passionate about paying it forward for other young women and men who didn’t know where to start.

Mika Brzezinski: I knew it in real time. I’ve really worked over the past decade on developing my gut. Take my big gamble with Morning Joe; it was one of the first times in my life I went with my gut, to stay on this show with Joe that everyone thought was a bad choice for me. I went against the herd and the show exploded. After that happened, I started going with my gut a lot. When I was talking to Daniela, as she was speaking, I thought that this could be a book and one she could be a massive part of. It would launch her future, not only because she deserves that, but because she is earning it like I’ve never seen anyone in her age group do.

Mika Brzezinski and Daniela Pierre-Bravo.

Michael LoccisanoGetty Images

You hear that a lot, to trust your gut. What does that actually mean?

MB: I can’t explain to people how to recognize gut instinct. It’s just instantaneous, surefire knowledge. What women can struggle with is following that instinct. I told Daniela that I thought this idea was going to be a book and I just knew it would happen. I called my publisher and spoke with even more conviction. She stopped me halfway to say, “I totally agree!”

This book doesn’t contain only your advice, it also features the advice of leaders in their respective fields. What were you looking for when you asked people to weigh in?

MB: There are a lot of platitudes out there about being a mentor that feel a little tired. What young people need to know are the actual technicalities of what they need to do, how they should conduct themselves, and what that should look like. There’s a generation of kids, including my own, who’ve been raised with everybody getting a trophy. My parents had quite the opposite attitude. For the generations we’re speaking to, the message they needed to hear and the guidance on these issues is important because they don’t already know this stuff.

What’s the best and worst professional advice you ever got?

DP-B: What’s resonated most is the idea not to take business personally. We did a lot of research for the book, and this was one of those pieces of advice that’s easy to hear and difficult to take to heart. The problem is that when you take something personally—and this is especially true for young women—you can create so much mental clutter and that can stop you from raising your hand the next time. That’s something that I always have top of mind.

MB: It’s a hard time for young women who are just breaking in. They get so many mixed messages. On a micro level, one of the problems I’ve seen—which is hard to solve—is young people who come to work and six months later are asking for a meeting with a high-level manager to talk about her career. Wait a minute, your name is? It’s not a good look. But having said that, you want to inspire and teach young women to talk about their careers and to be able to learn how to make an impression and have follow up in order to have that moment for a big ask. Why do I bring this up in regard to the best advice that I’ve heard? For me, it’s about wishing I had followed these rules better myself.

How did you decide what was essential to share for your reader and what she didn’t need to know just yet?

DP-B: We worked for a long time on this book. As Mika has said, we partnered with Harvard University to understand the struggles and conflicts that young people have. We had raw data to play with, and I helped to conduct focus groups with young people who were struggling from the moment they got in the door through their 30s. The book is written in the voice of someone who has been there and done that, but it’s arranged for the life cycle of a millennial.

There is this idea of passing the torch in the book—of getting advice from someone more experienced and really taking it to heart. How important has mentorship been to you?

DP-B: According to that Harvard poll, mentorship is one of the things millennials are looking for most in the workplace. The reason why the relationship between me and Mika has been so effective is that I brought her real value for the first two or three years we worked together. One of the things she always says is that respect comes first, and friendships will follow. That’s something that I think it’s really important for everyone to know.

Adam RatheSenior Editor, Arts and CultureAdam Rathe is a senior editor at Town & Country, covering arts and culture and a range of other subjects.

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